Thundercat Opens Up About Loneliness, Snoop Dogg Firing, and New Album 'Distracted'
On a gray Thursday afternoon in late January, Stephen Bruner, better known as Thundercat, sits in London reflecting on his wildly diverse career. The genre-hopping bass virtuoso has backed artists from Ariana Grande to Herbie Hancock, appeared in Star Wars, and become a dedicated boxer. Ahead of his fifth album Distracted, Bruner explains his polymath mindset and shares candid stories about his journey.
The Snoop Dogg Incident: Fired for Being Too Weird
Bruner recounts a memorable moment from his early days as a bass player for hire. He found himself in what he describes as a "stupid-as-hell, Rick James-level band" backing Snoop Dogg, featuring Los Angeles jazz luminaries who would later contribute to Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp a Butterfly. During one performance, while Bruner was playing an expansive bass solo, Snoop sidled up and bluntly stated, "Ain't nobody told you to play all that."
Perhaps in a spirit of horizon-broadening, Bruner decided to play Snoop Dogg Frank Zappa's St Alfonzo's Pancake Breakfast, a complex jazz-rock track from 1974. "Yeah, I hit him with the rollercoaster," Bruner chuckles. "He was smoking, and he almost ate his blunt, saying: 'What the hell is going on?' I said: 'My sentiments exactly.' I think I did a cartwheel after that and left the band." He pauses, adding, "Or maybe I got fired: 'Get out of here dude, you're too weird.' I forget. It was a great moment."
An Eclectic Career Path
This anecdote typifies Thundercat's approach to music, involving improbable genre collisions and an impossibly eclectic cast of collaborators. He is likely the only musician to have played with Ariana Grande and Herbie Hancock while also being in an early 2000s boyband (No Curfew) and the thrash metal institution Suicidal Tendencies. He spent nine years with Suicidal Tendencies, powering through songs like Widespread Bloodshed and We're F'n Evil, all while working with Erykah Badu simultaneously.
When asked if any musical situation makes him uncomfortable, Bruner looks puzzled. "Whatever brain disposition that lets you know you're in a dangerous situation, I don't think I have," he says, shrugging. "I think constantly performing has allowed that to not be such a problematic thing."
The Transition to Solo Artist
Bruner's transition from multipurpose sideman to solo artist in the early 2010s felt natural, perhaps because his music is as strange and eclectic as his CV. His solo albums zigzag between funk, jazz-fusion, electronic pop, yacht rock, hip-hop, psychedelia, punk, and chiptune, all decorated with extravagant bass solos. This stylistic cocktail works because it never seems forced but rather a natural extension of his catholic tastes.
He attributes his musical openness to his parents, both musicians who believed categorizing music was merely a marketing tool. By his teens, he was enamored with Slipknot and Korn alongside the Billy Cobham and George Duke albums his parents played, or the jazz artists he and Kamasi Washington sneaked into LA clubs to see.
A Pop Star Unlike Any Other
Thundercat's uniqueness extends beyond his music to his appearance. In London, despite recently arriving from LA, he dresses in head-turning style: voluminous corduroy trousers, a shirt with 19th-century military brocade, trainers with metallic skeleton toes, and dip-dyed dreadlocks held back by enormous silver tiger grips. He accessorizes with a huge metallic breastplate bearing the logo of the cartoon alien felines from whom he took his name.
An obsessive fan of cartoons, comic books, and science fiction, Bruner peppers conversations with references to manga and video games. He considers his cameo as a man with a robotic hand in the Star Wars series The Book of Boba Fett his "greatest moment ever." "I can use that in an argument every time somebody gets too high and mighty: 'Hey, you can't talk to me like that, I was in Star Wars!'" he says.
New Album 'Distracted' and Processing Grief
Bruner hasn't stopped in London to discuss Star Wars, however. He has a new album, Distracted, which continues his head-spinning eclectic style. Smooth soft-rock piano ballads abut house tracks, A$AP Rocky raps over a shoegaze-influenced beat, and Lil Yachty and the Lemon Twigs feature in the supporting cast.
Yet beneath the eclecticism, the album reveals fraught and downcast themes. Previous works like The Golden Age of Apocalypse mourned the drug-related death of friend Austin Peralta, Drunk probed his relationship with alcohol, and It Is What It Is was consumed with grief over rapper Mac Miller's death. Bruner says making It Is What It Is was particularly difficult due to trauma and pain, compounded by its release during lockdown. "I've heard putting out an album being compared to postpartum depression," he notes. "And because of Covid, It Is What It Is came out to complete silence, like: drop the album and go sit in darkness."
Instead of touring, Bruner took stock. He gave up drinking and dedicated himself to boxing training. Distracted serves as "a bit of a diary, my thought processing," addressing self-sabotage, failed relationships, and his suspicion of undiagnosed ADHD. "I think that it's a byproduct of the environment, as most sicknesses are," he reflects. "And I know not one creative person whose brain isn't of that nature. It comes with the territory. So I guess it's somewhere along the lines of a superpower."
Remembering Mac Miller
The album returns to Mac Miller on She Knows Too Much, a track recorded years before Miller's death. Unlike the paralysing misery of previous songs about Miller, this buoyant funk-fuelled track offers a reminder of happier times. "It was the funniest shit ever," Bruner recalls. "I like to describe Mac almost like he was a one-man Rat Pack. When I would see him, I would somehow feel like we were supposed to be wearing suits. Like weird, highbrow bullshit and shenanigans."
Bruner describes Distracted as "the sound of me choosing happy," acknowledging that "choosing happy is a hell of a process." He seems content, joking about competing with Cardi B and enthusing about Paris fashion week. Reflecting on his career, he notes, "My main memory is thinking if I stood still for too long, I'd get hit with a beer can. I think the same principle applies. Actually, I think that principle applies to every stage of life: stand still too long, somebody's going to hit you with something."
With that, he shakes hands and heads into the London dusk, breastplate clanking, heads turning as he passes. Distracted is set for release on April 3 on Brainfeeder, with the single I Did This to Myself featuring Lil Yachty already available.
